Original article written by Joseph Cottle for Church Production.

I had the opportunity to review BZBGear’s BG-Adamo-JR last year, and I quickly fell in love with that camera. Who doesn’t want an all-in-one and endlessly expandable capture and streaming solution with 20x or 30x optical zoom to boot? Honestly, BZB is kinda nuts with what they’re giving us, there. I promptly bought a unit for capture at one of our campuses and plan to expand in the future as needs arise.

Well, here comes 4K. Yes, the BZB BG-Adamo-4K is everything you know and love in the Adamo-JR, but cranked up to 11.

On The Outside

 

We’ll talk about the exterior first—the camera chassis itself comes in an easily hidden white or black with all the ports you could ever need on the back—12G SDI, HDMI, PoE LAN, USB 2.0 and 3.0, a micro SD slot for on-board recording, and a 3.5mm audio jack for hard-wired audio inputs. A familiar ¼-20 thread hole is ready on the bottom if you want to use a tripod.

BZBGear also sent me the BG-Commander-Pro to control the unit, and I quickly learned just how easy it is to get the camera running. A simple ethernet connection and some IP address adjustments gets signal running to the controller (or your laptop if you don’t have a controller) and you’re in business. Using the camera with a BZB controller, especially the Commander-Pro, makes integration virtually seamless. The unit is (rough guess, here) about 20% larger than the Adamo-JR, but it’s still so small that the black models will go especially unnoticed, save the tally light, which is all you want noticed anyway.

Analyzing the images up close on my monitor, I could see the crisp detail of the Sony CMOS sensor.

 

Functionality

The Adamo 4K responded quickly to joystick inputs as well as all of the control surfaces on the Commander-Pro.  Using the web GUI from either my laptop or the controller resulted in quick changes to camera settings as needed, especially the follow settings, which the Adamo-4K performs easily. Most impressive is the zoom quality. Analyzing the images up close on my monitor, I could see the crisp detail of the Sony CMOS sensor. There is no digital zoom on these units—it’s all optical (12x or 25x), and it might be the best thing about them. The optical zoom offers unbeatable value compared to other brands.

The PoE capability is also a huge plus, here, as the included power adapters are a bit cumbersome. Setting up a simple video network with a couple of these units and PoE network switch will give any church a clean capture and streaming system that wasn’t widely available until the last couple of years, and certainly not at this price point until BZBGear introduced the Adamo line.

There is no digital zoom on these units—it’s all optical (12x or 25x), and it might be the best thing about them.

Overall Impression

I love these cameras and I would wholeheartedly recommend them to any church looking for an affordable capture and streaming setup, especially those churches with limited staff and volunteers. Just one person can run the whole capture system if a BZBGear controller and switcher are purchased alongside these cameras, and you can do all of that for less than $10,000.

I currently use these cameras at our campuses and will look for more opportunities to use them in the future.

Original article written by Joseph Cottle for Church Production.